Five Choices Ichihara Yuuko Made in 1999
by 20 Thousand Leagues
Summary: Crossover with TRC and X/1999. Spoilers It was a year of change and choices that left no one unaffected, the most powerful woman in the world least of all. ClowxYuuko, WatanukixDoumeki


1. She didn't.

Ichihara Yuuko, with all of her immense spiritual power, could have easily swayed the outcome of the battle for the end of the world. She could have prevented any number of deaths, and saved any number of kekkai. She could have reversed the fall of Hinoto, prevented Fuuma's descent to madness. She could, even, have saved Subaru from his destiny as Sakurazukamori.

Easily, perhaps, she could have changed the fate of 1999, but like every action with a price. And she was cursed (blessed?) enough not to know that price.

She didn't know. And that spoke to her more strongly than any knowledge of consequences, it frightened her beyond any reason or rhyme. So she stayed out, absenting herself from this spiral and fight where she couldn't know the end and couldn't change the beginning. She stayed out, waited it out, and helped pick up the little shattered pieces at the end.

In retrospect, the price was higher than she could have paid.

2. It was 1999 in Tokyo when Yuuko chose Kurogane.

She damned two tiny twins with beautiful, broken eyes. Two weren't long until there was one, like Ten Little Indians played out in Valeria, bodies falling and falling and falling, bleeding and bleeding and bleeding on the purest snow, stacked hopelessly and endlessly like a ladder to hell.

The one lost and lonely boy with a princess to protect, now, his father's sword in hand, got a chance and Yuuko knew the 'what if' of this would haunt her the rest of her life. When she finally met them, rising up and falling down as if images from Heaven and Hell, the guilt pummeled her so hard she nearly told them the truth. Instead she sent them to Sorata and wished them the luck they'd never had.

3. She created Maru-dashi and Moro-dashi.

It wasn't out of loneliness, although their cheerful presence and bright laughter helped alleviate the strain. In 1999, Yuuko was all, absolutely, alone and her physical being was in immediate danger. This was something she hadn't prepared for. She needed a haven, a harbor, a hidden enclave to protect her from the things that were crashing down around her, both material and spiritual.

So she created the shop, and with it two little girls to help her pretend as she waited for him to come.

4. She enabled Watanuki and Doumeki's first encounter.

It was an active decision. Still haunted nightly by Yuui and Fai's tortured eyes, still plagued by Kimihiro's tears as his parents disappeared from his life, still reminded constantly of Shizuka's anguish at Haruka's death, she took action. Their lonesomeness paralleled her own; and more importantly, their lonesomeness was at least in part her fault.

They wouldn't meet just quite yet, as much as she'd like for them to. Watanuki was still just barely surviving 1999's onslaught of spirits, and Doumeki's presence was not yet strong enough to dispel the victims of the battle. Meeting now would just get them both killed.

So she resolved to have them meet in the future, a future she was unable to determine but knew must exist. In it, she wished, they would meet. In it, she wished, their love would be realized before it was too late.

She projected her own regrets onto them, sealed their salvation, and with a little brandy managed to get to sleep at night.

5. Ichihara Yuuko finally forgave Clow Reed.

It wasn't something she had ever expected to do. The way he had left her, alone and broken but strong enough to stand; the way he had kissed her goodbye, had let her cry on his shoulder depend on him love him….

When he was gone she thought she'd never stop grieving. She hasn't. When he was gone she thought she'd never forget him, him and all his wonderful laughter and adventures. She wouldn't. When he was gone she thought she'd never forgive him.

She did. Because when the Subaru she'd watched grow up alone collapsed on top of Rainbow Bridge, cradling _his_ love in his arms, she knew that Clow had done the best he could. She had forgotten why she had loved him in the chaos of the battle she had had to face alone, but she remembered now and she understood.

So she forgave him, and went on living with his memory to guide her way.


End file.
